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Friday, May 27, 2016

Father Knows Best jerked our chain again today

The episode was The Great Experiment, first broadcast in December of 1958, in which, according to IMBD, paterfamilias Jim:

...attends a meeting where the speaker's topic is to get more out of life and find out what is going on their [sic] world. Jim becames enthused and tries to pass this philosophy on to his family...

We ask you: Does the skeevy schemer in the middlelook like a relative of Perez Hilton or what?

Good enough. Anyway Jim Anderson's break-out-of-your-comfort-zone marching orders to son Bud involved a map to a door with a secret knock code, which describes either a speakeasy in the 20s or, in the 50s, a gay bar!
Naturally Bud took along his hotter best bud, Kippy, and both were admitted by a nerd with a evil leer who promptly relocked the door.
Fabulous! We really liked where this seemed to be going...
Alas, it turned out to be some kind of lame secret math club where a handsome teacher got Kip and Bud going... about the math involved in calculating the sun, solar flares, distances from earth and zzzzz.
We've never seen such a terrific setup wasted on so cruel a bait and switch. That episode where Bud flirted a little with Dad before heading out to the baths had a much better payoff.

Maynard (Bob "Gilligan's Island" Denver) slyly flashes a nipple to the CBS eye while trying to talk his best buddy Dobie Gillis (Dwayne Hick­man) into taking off all his clothes. Whoever said 1950s television was a vast waste­land obviously didn't know where to look.